Please help analyse the syntactic structure of the sentence?

Question

Freer trade is not universally popular in the United States. Many trade unions remain skeptical, @@pointing to a steady loss of high-paying union jobs to developing countries@@. However, most consumers are enthusiastic as they gain the benefits of the lower prices resulting from greater competition. Congress is divided on the issue with perhaps a slight majority being in favor of trade promotion authority.

Q: You don't bother to explain the whole sentence for me. The only place where I don't understand is the syntactic structure of the following sentence, "a loss to ..." is my understanding right?

"pointing to a steady loss of high-paying union jobs to developing countries"

And please also explain which general meaning "point to" takes here ?

Answer 1

The point of that particular sentence, is that trade unions remain skeptical about freer trade because there is a "steady loss of high-paying union jobs to developing countries". the "pointing to" part is a way of saying "because", but it usually requires a solid fact after it. a way to think about it is, if you held an opinion about something, then you might, quite literally, "point" to a particular piece of evidence for reasoning.

i hope this helps. :]